


All the Patience It Takes

by Nestra



Series: Michael Guerin Week 2019 [3]
Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Aliens, M/M, Michael Guerin's secret pibble heart, guerinweek19, mgweek19
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-20
Updated: 2019-09-20
Packaged: 2020-10-24 12:37:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20706131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nestra/pseuds/Nestra
Summary: "If it involves being quiet and thoughtful, he's in trouble."





	All the Patience It Takes

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Michael Guerin Week 2019 on Tumblr, Day 3. Prompt in the end notes.

Michael has to admit, on the whole, that he's glad Noah is dead. It's going to take a long time for Isobel to recover from what that asshole did to her, and she's always going to have those scars deep inside herself. She trusted the wrong person, and he violated her. They all trusted him, and he fucked them over.

But as Michael closes his eyes and tries to brain-whammy a bored-looking Kyle, he wishes that they'd learned a little bit more about their powers before Max flambéed Noah.

"Just go inside yourself," Isobel says. "Find the place where it's quiet, and from there, you can find that same place inside Kyle's mind."

He does try, honestly, the same way he's tried every time before. And it works exactly as well. Not at all.

"Is something going to happen?" Kyle asks.

"Shut up," Michael grits out.

Isobel snaps her fingers in front of his face until he gives up and opens his eyes. "You're pushing too hard. It's not about force."

"Then maybe you ought to find someone else, because the only thing I know how to do is beat the shit out of stuff."

She tilts her head and shoots him that faux-maternal look he hates. Even worse, Valenti looks sympathetic too.

"Go pry Max away from Liz and try your experiments on him."

"Michael, I'm sure you can learn how to do this. It's just going to take practice."

The frustrating thing is, he's sure she's right. Every little tidbit they learn about themselves and their people makes him think that they haven't even scratched the surface of what they can do. Not just healing and killing, or moving stuff through the air. They probably have powers none of them have dreamed of; they just need to figure out how to access them.

If it involves being quiet and thoughtful, he's in trouble.

"I'm serious. You and Max and Liz and Dr. Jackass over there, you work on it. I'm going to go—do literally anything else."

What he decides to do is head for Alex's place. It's snowing a little, but it's not icy, and he's got chains for the tires if he needs them. He should probably call first, but they've gotten to a comfortable enough place that Alex won't be pissed if he shows up without warning. They've hung out a few times, sat on the porch drinking cheap beer, and deliberately talking about stupid shit.

It's new for him. For both him and Alex, actually, the whole 'trying to be friends' thing. They got started on it, and then it was derailed by Noah and Caulfield and Michael's short-lived attempt to date Maria. But he thinks they're back on track. They're trying, at least.

The snow lets up just about the time he pulls up at the cabin. He honks the horn a couple of times to give Alex a little bit of warning, then pulls on his jacket and heads for the door.

It swings open just as he reaches the steps to the porch. "You lost?"

"Nah, told my GPS to take me to the nearest free beer, and here I am."

Amazingly, that gets a laugh out of Alex. "Fine, come on in."

The cabin's warm, a healthy fire lighting the front room. Even so, Alex is wrapped in several layers—a hoodie over a long-sleeved shirt, probably over a t-shirt. Heavy sweatpants. He doesn't think Alex dressed like this in high school, no matter how cold it was, but maybe he remembers wrong.

He tosses his jacket on the couch and takes a seat. Alex returns from the kitchen with a beer in each hand and offers one to Michael.

"Seriously, what brings you out here tonight?"

"Iz and company are running the latest round of alien experiments, and I got tired of being the lab rat."

"They figured out anything useful?"

"Not really. Iz can still knock stuff over. Max can sort of get inside someone's head if everything is dark and quiet and there's no other distractions in the room, but he can't actually make them do anything. And I—" He lifts the bottle to his mouth for a healthy sip. "I can do jack shit."

He hates the knowing way Alex looks at him then. "I'm sure it'll come to you," Alex says.

"Right." He doesn't feel like digging into it, though Alex would sit there and listen while he bitched about Max and Isobel and Liz and the research and Max's fucking doe eyes and how they never got a chance to learn anything from Noah, due to him being a psycho serial killer. He has listened to it, like Michael's listened to Alex talk about his dad and his brothers, the few stories he can tell about missions he was on, the brutal and beautiful deserts of Iraq. 

They talk about music instead, Michael introducing Alex to bands he missed out on while overseas, music playing from his phone speakers while they crowd close together to listen. Alex has mentioned the two of them getting together to play sometime, but they haven't made it happen yet. The amazing thing is, there's no rush. They've got the time to let it happen when it happens.

After a couple of hours, it's starting to get dark, and there's the possibility of more snow tonight. Michael puts his hands on his thighs and pushes himself up. "I should get going."

Alex stands easily with him. He's been focusing on his physical therapy, since all of the intrigue has calmed down, and it's good to see him looking more and more comfortable with the way he moves now.

"I'm glad you came," Alex says. "That you feel like you can come here, when you need to—whatever. Get away from things."

His first instinct is to respond with sarcasm and self-deprecation, but he swallows it. "Yeah. Me too."

Alex opens the door for him onto a quiet night and a snow-covered landscape. A few stray flakes drift down, but the clouds above are sparse. "I know we don't get much snow here, but I still missed it."

"It's fucking magical," Michael says. The sarcasm can only be suppressed for so long.

He sways into the door frame when Alex bumps him with his shoulder. "That was genuine emotion. I shared something with you."

"I know. It was terrible." Another, harder bump, and he has to put his hand out to steady himself. Somehow, without meaning to, he reaches for Alex's shoulder.

Alex's teasing grin fades slowly. Even through the layers, Michael can feel the curve of bone under his fingers.

He wasn't going to do this. They weren't going to do this. They'd talked about it like adults, and they'd both agreed that with everything going on, conspiracies and secret underground bases and the rest of it, it was smarter to just focus on being friends.

It all made perfect sense, until he touched Alex.

He doesn't move. He's got that much control, and no more. If Alex doesn't want this, doesn't feel what he's feeling, Michael's not going to be the one to fuck everything up.

Alex steps closer. He can smell the acrid scent of the fire trapped in his clothes. He can see the furrowed skin between Alex's eyebrows, the slight frown that means he's thinking through something. He can feel it when Alex moves in again, close enough to stroke a finger down the side of Michael's face.

He closes his eyes. He knows what happens next.

Alex sighs into the kiss, his hand moving to cup the back of Michael's head. It's slow and as quiet as the night outside. It feels like the only thing he's ever wanted.

When Alex draws back, Michael finds himself with his fingers gripping Alex's arms, stopping him from going too far. 

"It's okay," Alex starts, but then he catches sight of something over Michael's shoulder. "Michael, look." 

Alex gently turns him around. It takes him a second to figure out what he's seeing in the fading half-light, but where the snow was unbroken before, plants have pushed out of the ground. Orange flowers decorate them, and when he inhales in shock, he smells their sweet, floral scent.

"Honeysuckle," Alex says in his ear.

"I don't understand."

"Me either. But whatever it is, it came from you."

He's right. Michael has no idea how it happened, but he did this. He can feel it. It's something inside him, and Iz and Max too. And if he did it once, he'll figure out how to make it happen again, and maybe he can learn how to grow things instead of just throwing them around and breaking them apart.

He walks down to the nearest bush and breaks off a branch, then returns to Alex, standing framed in the firelight coming from the cabin. He holds it up to Alex's face, lets him smell it.

"Maybe I'm the one who did it," he says. "But it came from you."

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt from the song "Fistfight" by Ballroom Thieves: "Our love grows flowers in the winter". Title also from the song.
> 
> I'm on Twitter as [@akaNestra](https://twitter.com/akaNestra) and Tumblr as [changingthingslikeleaves](https://changingthingslikeleaves.tumblr.com/).


End file.
